Sometimes your Hololink can crash if the assets are too heavy for the GPU on your end-user's smartphone.
This can happen with any Mobile Web-Based Software
It is important to note that this can happen with any mobile web-based application that uses a lot of graphics and/or 3D elements, so this is a problem you can encounter with any webAR or webVR software on the market.
Your end-user might see a message on their screen saying something like:
"There were repeated problems loading your web page."
Or the experience might suddenly start to reload half-way through the userflow.
The Culprit
The problem is almost always that the image files in your Hololink are too large which results in the GPU having to work with too many pixels.
The most common examples are:
A 360 dome that is much too large.
A 3D model that has textures that are much too large.
Images that are unnecessarily large.
In both of the above cases, there is a .JPG or .JPEG file with very many pixels, even though most of those pixels are not shown on the screen.
An Example of a Very Large 360 Dome Image
360 Domes are .JPG images that are twice as wide as they are high (aspect ratio is 2:1).
If you have an image that is 8000 pixels wide and 4000 pixels high, you will have 8000 X 4000 = 32000000 pixels for the GPU to work with.
But in most cases a size of 2048 pixels wide and 1024 pixels high is sufficient to look good on a mobile screen. This only gives 2048 X 1024 = 2097152 pixels for the GPU to work with, so almost 16 times less.
An example of a Model with Very Large Textures
3D Models consist of meshes (the frame or shape of your model) and textures (the colours and patterns on the surface of your model).
The meshes seldom take up much space, but the textures can be very large. Like with 360 domes, the textures don't need to be very large, especially not when they are used on mobile devices.
Textures can often be reduced to 1024 x 1024 px, or in some cases even 512 x 512 px while still looking really good on a smartphone screen.
You can learn how to optimise your textures in this video:
Images that are too large
If you are using a lot of images in your Hololink, make sure that they aren't too big. As long as they look sharp on the screen of your phone, they are large enough. Often this can mean that you can resize them down to 512 px wide or sometimes even smaller.
What is best for the image you are using is something you should test, but start with images that are no larger than 512 pixels wide and see what they look like.
Summary
If you follow the advice above when creating your Hololinks, you'll find that you can easily make your experience load quickly and efficiently on most devices and connections.
For more tips on optimising file size, try reading this help article: https://intercom.help/hololink/en/articles/8198458-optimising-file-size
Good luck with your creations!